Twisting Your Mind and Smashing Your Dreams...

Excitement is in the air in our camp, as we've just received the first full pass of the mastered "Fits & Cycles" done by the fantastic Alan Douches of West West Side Mastering. Keep it tuned here for album art, track list, release date, etc. They sound amazing, and we can't wait til you can all hear 'em.

In Baltimore, There Were Crepes

Despite the expression, Landis thought they were delicious.

Wrecking Shop

Friday marked the end of our two- weeks- ish off from playing shows, and we celebrated the occasion by going all upscale and actually renting a van to drive up to NYC. Dan, Elise, Jay, Landis, and Tracy (from Little Black Cloud, as mentioned in previous posts) rocked the 15-Pass all up on I-95N, and I met them at the Cake Shop on the Lower East Side after a long hard day at work. I arrived to Dan and Jay acting all giddy-like that they had just seen Phoebe Cates downstairs, supervising her son's band. He himself was that 'batin kid from "The Squid and the Whale", so I think it's safe to say we were in the presence of movie stars. I did not see them myself, but apparently Mrs. Kevin Kline has still got it going on (in the Stacy's mom sense). The show went swimmingly and the crowd was fantastic, and we got to play with some great bands (McGregor Burns, Fredrik, & Arizona). My apartment in Bushwick turned into Camp Crashpad (except for Jay) for Friday evening, then we all woke up and had a lovely brunch at Harefield Road. We then, of course, went record shopping at Permanent Records in G'point before settling back at the house with a couple of bottles of wine and "Gummo" on DVD. Soon, we knew...it was house party time....and I'll let someone else post about that. XOXO John

Mung Dynasty

Ah, and so ends another enjoyable weekend of shows. Things started off nicely on Thursday night with most of the band heading to Cous Cous to listen to Tracy (from Little Black Cloud) DJ a set of French Pop/Freakout/Psych/Etc. while downing several drinks and generally enjoying ourselves.

We headed up to The Girl Cave in DC on Friday, which ended up being a fantastic house with great hosts, vegan food and an extremely enthusiastic crowd. I bought tiny bottles of High Life (the same size as Mickey's but conspicuously more akin to Orangina in shape) and discussed my worst show experience in DC, during which the windows were smashed out of my ex-girlfriend's Oldsmobile after a Wolf Eyes show and we stayed at a hotel that had a surprise syringe in the box of tissues (anyone who knows me will note that this is especially dangerous for yours truly).

We made it home, crashed, and headed up to Lynchburg the next day, where we witnessed an absolutely amazing sunset and chowed down on pizza at Mario's, which managed to combine Salvador Dali, giant fake spiders, an empty goldfish bowl that was filled (quite loudly) during dinner by an Andy Milonakis lookalike, and had the overall decor of a place that definitely used to be a Pizza Hut. The show was packed and went over incredibly well. Speakertree was great, beer was had, records were purchased, etc. One of the most enjoyable moments of the evening came when we all awoke at roughly 4AM to see that John had rolled himself into a rug in order to keep warm, leaving only his head poking out. Luckily, all tensions were eased over an especially greasy breakfast in Charlottesville.

This week we've got a bit of a break, with only one show this weekend in Williamsburg, which should allow us plenty of time to sober up and apologize profusely for anything we did on Halloween.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN

A lot has happened since I attempted a dry run with the blog back in January, when we were still knee deep in what is now the completed Fits & Cycles. Since then, we've signed with Little Black Cloud (the calming glow of Tracy's record collection is featured in the accompanying image) and begun playing a solid block of shows throughout the Fall, trying to do press and radio, getting the record mastered at West West Side, and doing what most bands do when they're functioning in a healthy manner.

Friday night was our first show in Richmond as a full band since last year's ill-fated performance at The Camel with The Lodger, and things went swimmingly despite an early end time and some equipment malfunctions. The Invisible Hand were loud and fantastic, as expected, and D Numbers filled the place with more fancy electronic equipment and keyboards than you could find anywhere but a Yes concert.

Last night at The Boot proved notable as a result of the following things: Great sound, Adam (Invisible Hand) spraying blood onto his guitar, a shockingly low dollar amount on the bar tab, and a man in a football jersey grinding with a girl next to the stage while the local band pounded out a punishing twenty minute acoustic guitar/drum jam that lapsed into the realm of the surreal after minute ten.

We're heading up to The Bridge Pai in Charlottesville where we may/may not be playing with a real live metal band. I guess it's close enough to Halloween to break out the blood capsules.

Aerobicide

A little while ago I decided that it would be an interesting experiment to start a blog accessible by all six members of Cinemasophia in order to help better document the goings-on of the band in 2008. This can also serve as a clearing house for live mp3's, demos, and visual ephemera created by the band.

Right now, we're midway through album #3. We recently finished our second session with the esteemed John Morand (Sparklehorse, Breadwinner, Royal Trux, et al) at Sound of Music, and then went to New York, where we finished around 75% of the arrangements. The songs sound fantastic, ranging from psychedelic math-pop freak-outs to steely sea-shanties, drone-y acoustic numbers about murder, and much, much more. Now we just have to figure out what to do for the 12".

Landis